Harry Likes Harriet

Harry Reid likes Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. He even suggested her to the President.

Now Harry's explaining why he likes her so much.

Oh, joy.

WASHINGTON - When Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid surprised liberals this week by prominently applauding Harriet Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court, he was displaying a hint of his disdain for elitists as well as his admiration for a Western lawyer, who like him, pulled herself up by her bootstraps.

Reid, who grew up in a small Nevada mining town and worked his way through law school, alluded in an interview with Knight Ridder to Miers' struggles as a young woman working part time to pay for her education after her father was incapacitated by a stroke.

"She overcame difficult family circumstances to become the managing partner of a successful 400-lawyer Dallas law firm," Reid said.

He contrasted Miers with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Harvard-educated blue-chip constitutional lawyer whom Reid voted against.

"As bright and brilliant and as good a lawyer as Judge Roberts was, I asked him - he'd never taken a deposition, he'd never picked a jury, never tried a case," Reid said. "He never tried a case. She has. We need people like that who have real-life experiences."

Reid has voiced admiration for Miers since he first met her about six months ago when she paid him a courtesy call upon her appointment as White House counsel. In a conversation with Internet bloggers last week, before Bush nominated Miers, Reid recounted how he urged Bush to consider her for the court.

"I said, `The vice president got here in a very unusual way. He was chosen by you to find a candidate to be your vice president. You liked the person in charge of finding a candidate better than the people he chose.' I said, `I think that rather than looking at the people your lawyer's recommending, pick her.'"

Don't you just love how the MSM makes Harry Reid sound all homespun and friendly? As though they want you to say, "Gosh, Harry Reid sure sounds like a nice guy! I think I'll go with what he says."

But:

For all that, Reid said in the interview that he wasn't committed to vote for Miers' confirmation. He said she must prove her mettle during Judiciary Committee hearings.

If he wasn't committed to supporting Miers, he shouldn't have opened his big fat mouth and advised the President about her.

Really, I don't consider Harry Reid liking Harriet Miers to be a point in her favor.